ABSTRACT
The chapter compares memorial landscapes in two regions, former East Germany and Czech lands before 1989 and during post-socialism. Two cities, East German Jena and Czech Hradec Králové, were chosen as cases studies. The study shows that in spite of the strong historical, socio-economic and cultural similarities between both cities, profoundly different memorial landscapes existed here during the whole twentieth century. This was a result not only of different historical roots, including national traditions, but also of the nature of state socialist and post-socialist regimes. Focusing on the culture of memory, the chapter questions the existing notion of similarities between East German and Czechoslovak state socialism. The comparison of the two memory cultures shows that socialist Czechoslovakia turned out to be more ideologically fierce and more anti-communist in the post-1989 period.
